Just like the butterfly I too will awaken in my own time – Deborah Chaskin

Spiritual awakening is an experience that radically changes your view of who you are, why you are, and your view of the world. It is not more information but transformation.

Those who have been graced a spiritual awakening have a challenging time in trying to share with you an experience that is beyond description. Words are only pointers.

The problem is when you have individuals’ taking authority for guiding others toward this experience of awakening when in fact, they have never had such experience.

Such is the history of all hierarchical religion.

You have the blind leading those who wish to become Seers and KNOWERS. The focus becomes the assertion of belief rather than the invitation to move beyond concepts and beliefs.

The spiritual awakening experience allows you to experience the unification of the following.

• Time within Eternity.
• Personal within the Universal.
• The form of the body within the Formless.
• “I am” within the “I AM.”

Spiritual awakening is the experience of unity referred to by the word Yoga meaning “union.” The Master Jesus spoke of this experience when he declared.

I am in the Father and the Father is in me. – John 14:11

This is a description of the experience of being personal and transpersonal both at the same time.

While this is a description of the experience only those who have and KNOW the experience have the authority to guide you to such an awakening.

The first spiritual awakening is something very basic and something very simple. It’s the discovery that there is a voice in your head that always talks to you. – Eckhart Tolle – Spiritual Teacher

The first step on learning how to spiritually awaken is to become aware of the voice in your head that is your overthinking personal mind.

This overthinking voice in your head leads to the creation of many non-existent problems.

This is the voice in your head where you lie awake at night and start worrying. This generates a lot of unnecessary unhappiness.

This never-ending thinking has become a major problem for the human condition. It began in earnest with the Age of Enlightenment when the French philosopher Rene Descartes declared, “I think therefore I am.”

Spiritual awakening turns this around whereby you live the experience, “I AM and therefore I think when I need too.”  More than this you live the experience “I AM, and I allow the Universe to think through me.”

The reality is that thinking tends to create more problems than it solves.

The 1^st Step in how to spiritual awaken is to become aware of this issue and then begin to invite a different level of consciousness.

A problem cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it – Albert Einstein.

The overthinking personal mind is the self-talk that everyone engages with. Much of the time this is unconscious.

We live in what has been called The Age of Anxiety. Much of that has to do with trying to solve problems with the mind that was never designed to solve such problems.

The intellect is a wonderful thing. It is the pinnacle of evolution on this planet. You are not being asked to give up the intellect.

You start the process of spiritual awakening or unfoldment (Joel Goldsmith) when you are willing to make your personal mind the servant of the Universal Mind.

The modern spiritual teacher Guy Findley says it in a different way.

Your purpose is to serve Love’s purpose. – Guy Findley – Spiritual Teacher.

This is the process of moving from your head to your heart.

This is the process of moving from knowledge by way of words and concepts to KNOWING by way of being thought through by Divine Intention.

Yesterday I received an email which invited me to join a course entitled “Becoming the Master of Your Mind.”

Here is the invitation from this course.

Millions of smart, sensitive, and creative individuals face the sorts of challenges that Dr. Eric Maisel, America’s foremost creativity coach, has been addressing for over thirty years.

But the only challenge they have real control over is getting a grip on their own mind.

Philosophers from Marcus Aurelius to the Buddha have proclaimed this to be our essential human task and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is the modern way this age-old message is delivered.

That’s why CBT is quickly gaining popularity, so much so in fact, that it is the primary therapy provided by the British Health Service.

The central message of Buddhism and CBT are true: you are what you think.

This might be a course worth exploring for anyone who suffers from anxiety. I have found CBT to be of benefit for myself.

There is a statement within this course description that needs to be clarified if your interest is in learning how to start spiritual awakening.

This is the statement “You are what you think.”

This is true of the personality. However, the journey of spirituality is the journey beyond identification with the personality (meaning mask) and beyond identification with thought.

Buddha did not claim, “You are what you think.”

No enlightened individual makes the mistake of confusing the personality with the True Self.

You are personally what you think but spiritual awakening reveals that the personality is not who you are.

The focus of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is learning to be a witness of the thoughts that arise in your mind but not become attached to them.

In this way you learn how not to be drawn into the drama that negatively impacts your personal life.

In wisdom teachings this is recognised as the practice of witnessing.

Being simply a witness you are at the highest peak of consciousness, and when you are at the highest peak of consciousness, from there you can look at the deepest depth of your being – Osho

Anyone who begins the journey of spiritual awakening learns that they are the witness and not the thoughts in their mind nor the emotions that attach to such thinking.

The witness is not the thinker. The witness is the observer of the thoughts. You are the witness. You are the Still Point Centre. You are consciousness.

This is you beyond identification with thought and form.

This is you beyond ideas about yourself and your story about your past or plans for the future. The modern spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle refers to this as Presence.

The gradual evolution of thinking has come to a point where humans tend to overthink – Eckhart Tolle – Spiritual Teacher.

Meditation is the Golden Key to all the Mysteries of Life – Osho

Once you become aware of the never-ending thoughts in your head that you become identified with and that are the primary cause of most psychological suffering what then to do.

I recommend that you follow a key spiritual instruction that invites.

Be still and KNOW that I AM God – Psalm 46

If you have an issue with the word “God,” then drop that word. The description for “God” as used within most wisdom teachings is the phrase “I AM.”

Notice that this is very different from the philosophical position predicated by Rene Descartes that says “I think therefore I am.”

The “I AM” is Universal Intelligence of which you are apart but never apart from. It is infinite and timeless. It is before form and before thought.

You are here to KNOW that unity, but this KNOWING is existential and not intellectual.

To be nearer the truth the KNOWING happens beyond thought and it is where your mind is stilled to the point that you allow yourself to be thought through.

All spiritual traditions of any depth invite you to become the KNOWER beyond the personal. The practices that are used to allow such movement are practices such as meditation and prayer.

NOTE – This is not prayer as normally understood and taught by most hierarchical religious traditions. For a deeper understanding of the nature of prayer I have written the 10 Day Prayer Challenge.

You are the witness, to whom things happen but who remains a witness. Witnessing is the art of nonidentification, and nonidentification is all. Nonidentification is all there is to meditation. It is the whole meditation. – Osho

The unending voice in your head is a major cause of stress. The thoughts in your head have an impact on the body. The thought gets attached to a feeling and the feeling is expressed through the body.

Over time most of your energy goes to this never-ending overthinking stress creating unconscious activity. Over time this reduces the amount of energy in the body to fight infections and other forms of disease.

In this way there is the truth that you as a physical and mental energy system become your thoughts. However, this still does not mean that you are your thoughts.

By way of meditation or prayer (meaning prayer as an experience of allowing and receptivity) you become a witness to this never-ending stream of thought which is the equivalent of driving with one foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator.

As a witness by way of meditation or authentic prayer you relax into simply allowing the thoughts to pass through you mind like clouds in the sky. The sky is symbolic of the vastness of your True Self.

You are not trying to control your thoughts. Through the very act of witnessing, you practice the act of “Being Still.”  Out of this stillness arises the KNOWING of the True Self beyond thought and form.

The problem for most beginners is that this is usually not exciting enough. It doesn’t compare with the drama that is the stuff of most people’s lives and their personal self.

You don’t give up thinking, but you think when needed and more than this you recognize the privilege of being thought through by Divine Intention (my phrase for the word ‘God’).

Meditation is above the clouds of thought. – Yogacharya Ellen Grace O’Brian

All awakening starts with intention. Make it your intention to explore the practice of stilling the thoughts in your overthinking mind.

This is the practice of meditation. (It is also the practice of prayer but not prayer as understood in the everyday sense of the word).

Explore various kinds of meditation and find which works best for your personality.

A great site for exploring many kinds of meditation is Live and Dare.

Recognise that you are not being asked to give up thinking. When most people say that they are thinking they are not in fact doing so.

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behaviour. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain. – Eckhart Tolle

The best kind of thinking is when you allow yourself to be thought through.

This is where you learn to be open to the flow of universal intelligence that KNOWS how to express the fullness of who you are created to be.

Until you begin that practice of silent observation of never ending thought you are the Sleeping Beauty who remains in the tower of the intellect.

When you remain identified with your thoughts as the information from the course Becoming the Master of Your Mind states “You become what you think.”

This means that you master your personal mind and emotions but that does not mean you have learned how to start spiritual awakening.

Your inner growth is completely dependent upon the realization that the only way to find peace and contentment is to stop thinking about yourself. The Unteathered Soul – Michael A. Singer

To do that you have to move beyond the cloud of thinking into the open sky of no thought where you become the radiance of Love.